nRF51 IoT SDK

nRF51 IoT SDK
SDK for IoT applications using IPv6 over Bluetooth Smart
Overview
This SDK is a complete IPv6 capable Bluetooth® Smart software
stack with examples for the nRF51 Series SoCs. It supports
the Internet Protocol Support Profile (IPSP) and also supports
6LoWPAN over Bluetooth Smart.
Internet of Things, IPv6 and Bluetooth Smart
Up until now Bluetooth Smart enabled products have been able to
connect to the Internet via gateway devices such as a smartphone
or tablet, see fig 1. In this scenario the
App in the gateway device carries out the
necessary task of bridging Bluetooth
Smart to IP-based messages for
internet communication to the cloud.
Wi-Fi
It is desirable to have ‘things’
that can communicate with other
‘things’ using native IP directly.
In this scenario Bluetooth Smart
devices can connect directly to the
Internet via Bluetooth smart enabled
headless routers, see fig 2.
Smart Phone
Bluetooth
Smart
KEY FEATURES
6LoWPAN and IPSP library:
• 6LoWPAN compression/decompression.
• 6LoWPAN Node role.
• Packet flow control.
• IPv6 prefix management.
• Can use a third-party IPv6 stack
Nordic’s IPv6 stack:
• Support for multiple IP addresses
• ICMPv6 module
• UDP socket APIs
Nordic’s CoAP library:
• CoAP message types CON, NON, ACK, and RESET
• Token matching on responses to a local client generated
request
• Endpoint creation as resources
• Automatic lookup of requested endpoint on remote request
• Endpoint resource function callback
• Endpoint permission setting
APPLICATIONS:
• Internet of Things applications
IPS end-to-end
IPS over Bluetooth Smart
IPv6 enabled
Bluetooth Smart Things
IPS over Ethernet,Wi-Fi, Fiber etc.
“Headless”
Router
IPv6 significantly expands the number of available IP addresses
for use and makes available 2128 addresses. This means that if
necessary every device can have its own unique IPv6 address.
Standards such as 6LoWPAN have made it possible to integrate
sensors in a transport agnostic manner. 6LoWPAN enables
sensors to talk to IP Protocols natively. Furthermore, new
application layer protocols such as Constrained Application
Protocol (CoAP), and Message Queue Telemetry Transport
(MQTT) etc., ensure optimal use of bandwidth and resources of
constrained sensors.
Bluetooth Smart is an open standard that is specifically designed
for the needs of battery powered sensors and wearables, and now
powered with the 6LoWPAN IETF draft Bluetooth Smart is well
placed to address evolving needs of sensors connecting to the
cloud without the need for intelligent gateways.
nRF51 IoT SDK Product Brief Version 1.0
Heterogeneous IP networks and Bluetooth Smart
This SDK allows development of Bluetooth Smart applications
that form a part of heterogeneous IP networks. These networks
can be solely between ‘things’, between ‘things’ and the cloud,
and between ‘things’ via the cloud. Native IP with Bluetooth
Smart means there can be seamless communication via headless
routers that support a number of different transport and physical
layers such as Bluetooth Smart, 802.15.4, WiFI etc, see fig 3.
The nRF51 IoT SDK supports 6LN role only. The examples use
a Raspberry Pi in the 6LBR role and this is fully covered in the
supporting documentation. While the documentation describes
Raspberry PI, any Linux based computing system could be setup
for the purpose. IPSP defines establishing and managing the
L2CAP connection oriented channel.The various layers of IPv6 are
mapped to enable an IPv6 enabled Bluetooth Smart node on the
nRF51 Series SoC, see fig 4.
Layers marked in red are commonly referred to as an IP stack.
Nordic provides an implementation of IP stack (without TCP). It is
acknowledged that there may be reasons to use other embedded
IP stacks. Therefore, by design the nRF51 IoT SDK provides clear
interfaces to port any third party IPv6 stack to an nRF51 Series
device. As an example of such a third party port, Lightweight IP (lwIP)
is ported to nRF51 Series SoC with examples for UDP and TCP.
Thing to Cloud
Cloud
Service
Wi-Fi
IPv6 over
Bluetooth Smart
IPv6 over
Bluetooth Smart
IPv6 over
Bluetooth Smart
Other IPv6 enabled
technologies
Thing to Thing via Gateways
Thing to Thing via Cloud
Integrating various wired and wireless technologies using Internet
protocols and IPv6 is not just to enable sensors to talk a common
language with the cloud, but also with sensors that may or may
not be connected to the Internet of Things using the same physical
transport as the other sensors. These heterogenous IP networks
will likely be comprised of various technologies that employ IP for
communication and could be Bluetooth Smart, 802.15.4, WiFi etc.
nRF51 IoT SDK IPv6 stack
Internet Protocol Support Profile (IPSP) and Bluetooth Smart
6LoWPAN standard ensures optimal IP stack performance
over Bluetooth Smart as a physical layer. 6LoWPAN defines the
creation an IPv6 address of a device from its Bluetooth Smart
device address. It also compresses the IP header where possible
to ensure optimal use of RF bandwidth for power saving purposes.
6LoWPAN also defines roles called the 6LN (6LoWPAN node), 6LR
(6LoWPAN Router) and 6LBR (6LoWPAN Border router).
Application Layer
Transport Layer
Network Layer
Adaptation Layer
Physical and
Link Layer
CoAP
MQTT
UDP
TCP
IPv6
ICMPv6
RPL
A CoAP library referred to as nCoAP is supplied with the
SDK. This library provides implementation of Client and
Server with the ability to play concurrent roles. The library
is designed to be agnostic of IP stack used as transport
and can be used with Nordic’s IPv6 stack, lwIP stack or any
other stack implementation ported to the nRF51 Series
SoC. An example implementation of MQTT over lwIP TCP
transport is included in the SDK. This implementation
assumes lwIP TCP application interface and is not
transport agnostic. All examples in the SDK that require
TCP as transport use the lwIP IPv6 stack.
nRF51 IoT SDK and SoftDevice
LE L2CAP connection oriented channels provide an optimal
logical transport to transmit IPv6 packets which may not
fit into the default application level MTU of 23 bytes. LE Credit
Mode, the mode defined for connection oriented channels for
Bluetooth Smart, provide in-built mechanism of segmentation and
reassembly of IPv6 packets and provide flow control mechanism.
LE Credit Mode was adopted as a part of Bluetooth 4.1 core
specification. Implementation of this feature is provided by the
SoftDevice that is distributed with the nRF51 IoT SDK. This
SoftDevice can play GAP peripheral role only.
This SoftDevice is not a production quality SoftDevice but built as
a proof of concept for technology prototype.
RELATED PRODUCTS
nRF51822
Bluetooth Smart and 2.4GHz proprietary
multi-protocol SoC
nRF51422
ANT/Bluetooth Smart multi-protocol SoC
nRF51 DK
Bluetooth Smart/ANT/2.4GHz Development Kit
nRF51 Dongle
USB Dongle for development and test of
nRF51 Series SoC
nRF51822-EK
Evaluation Kit for nRF51822
Bluetooth Smart 6LoWPAN
IPSP
SoftDevice
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nRF51 IoT SDK Product Brief Version 1.0